Into the Kalahari!

From Feb 22 to 25th, Pastor Senase and I trekked into the Kalahari to visit 6 settlement churches. This was my first visit out to these settlements since we have returned from the USA. First up was Phuduhudu. Sounds just like it looks and yes I got lots of smirks in America when I would say it. This is a new work in this area and we have only 3 faithful adult members and about 5 to 9 kids meeting under a tree. Since it was Friday and the adults were still working and kids still in school, we only managed to meet with one of our members, Kangkulu, to discuss the church and preparations from Easter Conference. This area is struggling and in need of a full time worker. The second settlement was Khekhenye where we over-nighted and had an early Saturday service with about 20 members. Not bad for an impromptu Saturday service that was announced just the night before. Mokapudi is our worker in this village and he is really running with the gospel. He is meeting with kids in the schools and patients in the clinic on a weekly basis. This church is well established and growing, but having challenges with giving and alcohol. Next up was Tswaane. In this settlement, we have one main extended family that makes up most of the church and we meet at their house. There are 3 additional members not in the family. All members save one were out of town at funerals and other weekend events, but we did manage to pass the word concerning the Easter Conference and they have promised to come. This church has been stagnate for a few years due to the lack of a ministry worker in the area. We then slept in the 4th settlement of Salajwe where we have a nice house with running water and electricity! I preached at the Sunday morning service to about 25 local members and the leaders of the 5th church of Kaudwani came by bus to join us for the service and for the meeting after. We prayed together, discussed the challenges and blessings, and made plans for the conference. Lots of members were out due to the large number of funerals that weekend. Salajwe is stuggling with out a pastor and the fact that the government has shut down the preschool there. We are negotiated with them to allow us to re-open. Kaudwani is growing under the leadership of our ministry worker named Cement. We stayed one more night in Salajwe and left early in the morning to meet with the last church on the way home. The village of Serinane is our newest church plant. The ministry worker there is named Opi and he is actually from that village. His wife is in Khekhenye and he spends a lot of time there so we were not expecting much at such a new church plant. We were pleasantly surprised to meet with Opi and at lest 10 adults with more who were unable to attend during working hours on a Monday. We encouraged them to try to come to conference so that they could meet the members of all the other churches and know that they are part of a big family.